Dyan Neary

The stakes are obviously high.

In 2023, about 2,000 children died from abuse or neglect.

Mark was noticing, reading the family's files, how much influence a CAP's opinion carried, which made sense to Mark.

After all, the CAPs are the medically trained experts.

But then again, what happened if the CAP got it wrong?

In the case histories he was reading, there were examples of that happening.

The file he'd labeled the Yellow family, for instance.

This was a kid who could normally sit up.

He was 18 months old, and the husband said he had fallen off the couch while playing with his siblings.

The next morning, he seemed hurt and couldn't sit up without falling backwards.

Further testing revealed the child had a total of four broken ribs in various stages of healing, as in fractures that could not have all happened that day by, say, falling off the couch.

The story the parents had told didn't match the injuries doctors were seeing.

The doctor, a cap, was suspicious of the father.

Fractures at various stages of healing could point toward a pattern of injury.

And the father was the one who claimed the child had fallen.

The mom was a nurse and she started her own research.

What else could explain the injuries?

A genetic condition maybe?

Meanwhile, the cap in this case was firm in her finding of abuse.

According to the mom, the doctor even suggested the unthinkable, that she leave her husband, take the children, and quote, never look back.